Zineb Sedira (b. 1963, Paris, France, based in London) works across photography, installation and film to create powerful immersive projects that tackle the universally resonant themes of identity, mobility, gender and environment. Marking her first major retrospective in Paris, A Brief Moment spans a period from 1998 to the present day and focuses on Sedira’s use of archives to explore the function and impact of images to (re-) construct meaning through a process of collecting and exhibiting.

Frequently combining the personal with the globally political, Sedira uses the lens of her own family history, closely linked to that of Algiers, France and the UK, to form collective narratives that testify to the experience of people living between different cultures.

Sedira’s projects are rich with metaphors and constantly shifting between a layered portrait of the artist and a broader reflection on memory, culture and belonging. The piece Standing Here Wondering Which Way to Go, invited visitors into a set of Sedira’s living room as a way of foregrounding the influence of the 1969 Pan-African Festival of Algiers and the revolutionary movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Similar to her video work these personal installations are inspired by the idealism of a multi-cultural world forged in the counterculture movements of this era, juxtaposed against the repercussions of geopolitical and industrial changes that occurred in the later 20th and early 21st century.

With thanks to the Fluxus Arts Projects for the support of Zineb Sedira's installation